If it seem to you, good Reader, that I have promised overmuch on behalf of him to whom this tractate shall be pleasing, know that I do not look merely on those things which you possess here, but also on those which, by cherishing such as you now have, you may hereafter obtain; for I have been unwilling, if hitherto I have not been a-wanting to my friends earnestly entreating me that I should allow them, even at the risk of their own peril, to encroach on your good-will, however great--I have been unwilling, I say, to give myself up to your fastidious criticism. You have enough here either to hand over to the rod which it deserves (for none of these things ask or claim for themselves maturer years), or to lay it up in your bosom as a pledge of more and of advanced attempts. Choose for yourself an alternative. As for myself, my aim has not deceived me. I have already attained the utmost pinnacle of my ambition, at the time when this somewhat indifferent murmur of my almost-infantine Muse sounded not unmusically in those ears, than which from the world at large I have none more learned to fear, none more indulgent to hope for; so that, as regards your applause, I will speak candidly and at once: I am neither over-confident nor over-solicitous of it. Firstly, my respect for you, Reader, whoever you are, and of whose decision I can hope everything, restrains; and next, my respect for those of whose penetration I am unable not to persuade myself to hope the greatest things. Yet still, how I do wish that I were of service whenever my Country desires to cast aside its own particular custom, so unworthy its own worth--that custom particularly by which, all her own things being despised, she only prizes those things to which having crossed the Alps and lived over the sea has given a value! But these wishes of too rash hope being put aside, let me turn to the acygnian gentlemen, whom I know--although I shall name none personally--to have angrily abandoned me on account of some of my recent sayings. Still, let them compose their temper, and let them confess--may they pardon such a great saying from a forward young man!--I say, let them confess that they owe me this: that, in truth, in so grand an argument, in which they have not recourse to the stale untruths concerning their own services, nor to the nauseous calumnies concerning ours. With regard to this slight statement of mine, I have yielded to the importance of those from whence it springs. And let it spring, forsooth! I speak seriously--and let them know that they will always find me most tranquilly reposing under that shadow which their greater light has cast around me!